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In the real estate system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The BossLadies who make all the goofy executive decisions, and the Realtor Assistants who do all the actual work. These are their stories. (Specifically, my stories from a journal I kept several years ago.)

This was another adventure in “capturing” information about potential clients. To make a long story somewhat shorter, BossLady signed up with a company online to have a toll-free phone number. She would put this toll-free number on our real estate signs, which are posted on the properties we have listed. The number isn’t posted anywhere else, not on our flyers or our Web site or anywhere other than real estate signs. That way, whenever someone calls this number, BossLady would know that they definitely saw the sign and were in the vicinity of one of our properties.

So, when people see our signs and call this toll-free number, supposedly the phone system “captures” not only their phone number, but also their name and address — even if they have caller ID blocking. (I was rather concerned about this when she first mentioned it. I looked at the FCC’s Web site and discovered that this is completely legal, which disappoints me mightily.) BossLady talked up this “capturing” technology like crazy when she first found out about it. I expressed a mild consternation about it and let the subject drop, since it was obviously going to happen no matter what I thought. She was crazy about the idea though. She loves the idea of being able to get all the vital statistics of anyone who shows even the faintest interest in our properties. She doesn’t give a crap that people might not want to be added to a mailing list unless they ask to be.

Anyway, I recently had my first occasion to jump into this information-”capturing” world. BossLady was out in the field, and she called me to say that someone had called the toll-free number (she gets a beep or a page whenever this happens), and she wanted me to go online and find out who it was. So I went to the toll-free company’s site, where all the fabulous information is supposedly “captured.” However, the only information I saw was the person’s phone number. No name, no address, no nothing.

I couldn’t resist.

I said to BossLady, “I thought this was supposed to capture their name and address too.”

Her response, rather hasty and defensive, was, “Well, sometimes it doesn’t work if it’s a cellphone.”

This may not sound like a big deal, but after the incredible fuss she made about being able to “capture” people’s names and addresses with this service, you’d think such a thing would be a greater disappointment. Especially since people are most likely going to be calling this number from their cellphones, since they are only seeing this number when they are on the road and drive past our signs.

Schadenfreude? Yeah, a little.